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Poster:	bookworm_librivox	Date:	Jul 11, 2007 4:56pm
Forum:	universallibrary	Subject:	copyright situation

What is the copyright situation for books in the Universal Library? I've found lots of books in the Universal Library that were published after 1923 such as this book on William of Orange (http://www.archive.org/details/williamoforangea013064mbp) (published 1962). Are these books in the public domain?

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Poster:	ARossi	Date:	Jul 13, 2007 2:59pm
Forum:	universallibrary	Subject:	Re: copyright situation

Hi,

If I understand it correctly, and mind you I'm not a copyright lawyer so don't take this as gospel, books published between 1923 and 1963 had to have their copyrights renewed after an initial period, or they fell into the public domain. I've seen estimates that 85 percent of the books published during that time did NOT have their copyrights renewed. So just because something was published after 1923 doesn't mean it can't be PD.

I have no idea what research was done on this particular volume, but you may be able to find renewal records online somewhere to do your own research.

Alexis

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Poster:	Mrmikel	Date:	Jun 7, 2008 10:40am
Forum:	universallibrary	Subject:	Re: copyright situation

There are many books in the archive that are copyrighted.

You can check at:
http://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&;PAGE=First

All by Samuel Eliot Morrison, the historian are. There is. one by Isaac Asimov. The book PT109 is in copyright. A good rule of thumb is that if it is by an author whose name you recognize, it is copyright. There are exceptions. Command Missions by Lucian Truscott the WWII general is not copyright.

Note that that search link will only cover back to 1950 published book renewals and if a movie was ever made of it, you might have trouble locating it because they did them in bulk.